They fled, stood in the litter-strewn passageway, stared at each other, speechless. At last she whispered, ‘She’s dead — she’s dead.’
‘Course she is.’ His voice was low, terrified, furious.
‘We’ll have to — tell — someone — ’
‘Tell? Tell who, you stupid cow? We tell someone and we’ll have to say what we was doing here. You going to take that on board — no, you’re bloody not. ’Sides, we’d be implicated — suspects. I’m having nowt to do with the filth. So keep your mouth shut. D’you hear that — keep your fucking mouth shut. C’mon.’ He blundered off, not waiting for her, not looking back.
She spent a sleepless night, every time she closed her eyes images fractured and reformed: slender body, bright hair tousled in a shaft of moonlight, elegant shoes, rotting flesh. She woke with a headache, distracted (although no one in her family was interested enough to notice), haunted by the fate of the woman — dreadful enough — but how much more horrifying to lie alone and abandoned in that broken-down, lonely place …
By lunchtime, when she finished her stint at Norton Packaging, she had made up her mind. Daring, heart thumping, knowing she would never confess this to him (if she ever saw him again), she set out walking briskly across Chatfield.
It took her fifteen minutes to the centre of town; her destination was the railway station, its row of telephone boxes. She had seen people do it on telly — put a handkerchief over the mouthpiece of the receiver.
She was so nervous her voice came out breathy and rushed. ‘Hasley Bridge. Old Park House. The body of a woman. Last night.’
‘Who is — ?’
Before the sentence was completed she had crashed down the receiver and was scurrying away.
*
At once a mobile was despatched from the control office at Chatfield subdivisional headquarters with instructions to establish whether they did have a body. Or was it a hoax?
They had a body. Old Park House was now a crime scene.
*
Detective Chief Inspector Sheldon Hunter, tied up giving evidence at Chatfield Crown Court all day, pawed the ground and reflected there was nothing so maddening as being bleeped and helpless to respond. Freed at last, he raced to Hasley. Old Park House could be nothing but a melancholy site. The violent storm of the previous Friday, rumbling on for two days, had worked its havoc through the half roofless house: the rubble-strewn ground covered a deep litter of autumn leaves, soaked and mashed, yielding — he was immediately given to understand — nothing in the way of footprints.
The unit had been hard at work, the body removed and delivered to the mortuary in Chatfield while an exhaustive search continued. What he learnt immediately was that she had been strangled with a silk scarf — most probably her own. There were no marks on her hands — beautifully shaped hands, soft, manicured, the enamelled nails unbroken. It would appear, then, that she had not attempted to defend herself, which seemed scarcely believable. There was no handbag in the vicinity, no pockets in her clothes to give any clue to her identity.
Hunter shrugged himself into his British warm. There was much for him to consider and there was also something beyond immediate necessity … a nudge. Intuition. Memory. Memory? He paused in that despairing place. But no. Whatever it was, prowling through the past, he could not retrieve it.
*
Hunter sat in his office at Chatfield subdivisional headquarters. Six foot three, built outwards to match; a strong, clever face, wary and compassionate, eyes as grey as a winter sea. His size, his personality, dominated whatever company he found himself in — this was not something he set out deliberately to do, simply that his presence always had to be taken account of. Particularly by his troops, who were so confounded by his unintentional non sequiturs that they frequently had the vertiginous sense of falling into his mind.
He had read the reports of the investigating officer and the duty forensic pathologist, discussed them with the duty sergeant Tom Hopper and was on the point of winding up this stage of the proceedings.
‘Nothing’s come up about the phone call?’ Hopper said.
‘No.’ And they knew nothing was likely to. Chatfield was not yet equipped with the facility to trace calls made direct to its number. If the caller — assumed to be female although her voice had been deliberately muffled — had dialled 999 the call would have been automatically recorded.
Preliminary enquiries had begun in the immediate locality, so far without the least hint that anyone had set eyes on the unknown woman. It was impossible to believe that anyone who had seen her anywhere near Hasley could have failed to notice her, to turn and stare — with curiosity, lust or longing — at the beautifully dressed, slender, blonde woman. Therefore it was to be presumed she had been taken there after her death; the indisputable pattern of lividity — of blood settling by gravity when her circulation ceased — proved that she had been murdered in a sitting position, and then transported to Old Park House.
There, she had been laid out in a seemly way, not raped, not mutilated, not robbed, she still wore her watch, bracelet, necklace, all expensive items. Her jewellery, her clothes, would help to identify her — but it would not be long before someone claimed her. She was a woman of background, status — not a vagrant, a drifter, a ship passing in the night.
It was generally understood there could be any number of reasons why she had not been reported missing although it was estimated her body had been lying in Old Park House for approximately five days. It might have been known to her friends and relatives that she was on holiday, on a business trip, had matters of her own to attend to and would not return until a specified date. Assuming she had friends and relatives who would notice her absence.
The answer was not long delayed. The incident room had been set up, HOLMES moved in overnight. Detective Sergeant James Collier — lately returned from a computer course and talking, in Hunter’s opinion, like a Dalek — could not entirely conceal his satisfaction at presenting Hunter with a printout from the PNC wanted/missing persons index. It was, to Sergeant Hopper’s jaundiced eye, reminiscent of a puppy bringing a bone to its master.
DS Collier had never made a secret of being gay and in consequence had to contend with every attitude from indifference to the most vicious homophobia. It never occurred to him to give up and do something else, he was young enough to keep fighting for a place in the career he valued above everything. He had never been asked by Hunter to account for his gender preference; Hunter, who knew Collier’s qualities, was well known not to care whether anyone was male, female, both or neither — so long as they were good at the job.
According to the print-out, Mrs Dora Hope, of Ashdene, High Town, Clerehaven had gone into Clerehaven police station on the previous day, Thursday. She was concerned about a neighbour who had not been seen since Friday, midday, 29th October. The neighbour, Mrs Jaynie Turner, was fifty years old, five foot six, slim, blonde. Her address: 14 The Avenue, Clerehaven.
‘It’s her,’ Collier said. ‘It’s got to be, hasn’t it, guv?’
‘And Clerehaven’s twenty miles away. So what was she doing in Chatfield?’ Hunter asked.
CHAPTER NINE
It was the first frost of winter, crunchy, tinsel sparkling. Clerehaven lay, shrouded and ghostly, clenched into freezing cold, thick ground fog.
A uniformed constable stood guard in the driveway of 14 The Avenue behind the wrought-iron double gates. In the road a scattering of onlookers lingered with idle interest and, distinguished by their ferociously concentrated attention, the media — cameras, ENGs, microphones — foregathered in the assumption that as a beautiful woman had met a violent death, everyone would want to know why, how, whoever. ‘Mr Hunter, can you tell us — ?’ ‘Not at the moment,’ Hunter said, surging unstoppably through them.
And then, stepping into the hall, pausing. This had been her home, the focus of her being, where she had lived her everyday life — and met her death? The most thorough forensic investigation was in pr
ogress, the scene-of-crime men working their way painstakingly through the bungalow, and it was already becoming evident that nothing untoward had occurred in this showy, obsessively cared-for place.
The bungalow was large, modern, furnished and decorated with an excess of luxurious show. In the sitting-room, every possible surface contained dolls: coiffed, frantically dressed in costumes from all corners of the world, all periods of questionable history. And photographs, countless ornately framed photographs of herself: one of her with two youngsters, from a faintly traceable likeness her children; several of her with a heavily handsome older man, presumably her father. None at all of her ex-husband.
And mirrors; large, small, elaborate, all arranged at a height he knew matched that of the dead woman, all endlessly reproducing the reassurance of her image, because — the notion occurring instantaneously — no matter how often, how many visitors sat in this room, the mirrors were not for them, her gaze would slide, unseeing, across their reflections, seeking always to come to rest on the reassurance of herself. Hunter sat quietly, thinking over the moment of intuition that had yielded up to him Jaynie Turner: pretty, ageless, self-absorbed, glowingly at the centre of her own universe … Was that why she had died?
A dainty lady’s desk, reproduction antique, stood in the bay window looking on to a rear garden of geometric exactitude and every conceivable dinkiness in the way of garden ornament. In the thick crusting of frost it looked like Santa’s grotto.
The desk was to him enviously neat, he had never known how to keep a desk tidy in the whole of his life. He sat down, began his patient examination.
The necessary documents were allotted to their own folders and drawers: household, finance, car, personal — everything essential and admirably ordered. There was a spiral notebook, many pages filled with childishly rounded, occasionally askew handwriting he had no doubt was hers. The first two pages contained a list of books all relating to genealogy. On the following pages — headed by dates from the autumn of the previous year — were brief notes on the practice of genealogy and local history and then long passages which, by their style and content, were obviously copied from the books listed on the first page.
So … she had been attending a course on the subject and was clearly not at home with the written word — hence the brevity of the notes and the long copied extracts. He picked up a large, important loose-leaf file labelled ‘Research’. Contents were listed on the first page and the file was made up of separate envelopes, each with a small tab for indexing, some filled in, some blank.
He skipped through the list – local newspapers, photos, advertisements, local magazines, oral information, memories, Gen Reg Office, St Catherine’s House…
There were several more; he glanced in the envelope for Gen Reg Office and found three handwritten pages headed: ‘Details necessary to supply for getting’ and then, variously, birth, marriage, death certificates. ‘Details’ was printed in capitals and underlined. There were a few copies of certificates with names that meant nothing to him.
He riffled through the other envelopes; their sequence had only an eccentric relation to the index. She obviously set great store by her ‘research’ but she was hopeless at it, incapable of organising her sources, her notes, or — he suspected — herself. He could not know why she had undertaken this project, except, perhaps, as some kind of distraction — the whole thing was a mess. It was when he came to the envelope in the file relating to herself that the explanation at once presented itself. The file was bulging, every certificate from birth, baptism, marriage, decree absolute. School reports, photographs, family tree — both sides of the family. He glanced through until his boredom reached crisis point, thrust everything back.
Replacing everything, he came upon a diary bound in pink taffeta. He opened it. The gold-bordered pages contained miniature coloured illustrations of sundials in gardens and thatched cottages; there was an uplifting sentiment for each week. God gave us memories so that we might have roses in December … The layout was a week per page. The double page spread for the previous week showed a central heating service for the Monday afternoon, Tuesday blank, Thursday evening a meeting of the Friends of Clerehaven Society. For Friday, the day she went missing, ‘S & S, Crowning Glory 4.30 p.m.’; this had been crossed through, the appointment repeated for the next day, 10.15 a.m. Also on the Friday the entry appeared: ‘C. station 5.30. B.N.’
He considered it. Clerehaven station? He was too old a hound to think it could be as simple as that, but it was a start. He spent some time going carefully through the rest of the desk, then called to DC Annette Jones, recently moved to CID, working quietly and efficiently through the bedrooms. ‘You haven’t come across an address book, have you?’
‘Not yet, guv. Wouldn’t it be … ?’ Her gaze ranged over the desk.
‘Nope. But she could have taken it into another room.’
‘Well, yes,’ she said doubtfully.
He looked a question. Their relationship was based on mutual respect; he could not admit she was his favourite, but he could acknowledge her intelligence and intuition, had been known to claim she was the best chap he had — just for the pleasure of seeing her sparkling response. That she was a raven-haired, gainly five foot eight, with a curving, red-lipped smile, he allowed to influence him completely. He was only human.
‘It’s just that, so far, there’s not a speck of dust out of place. She strikes me as a woman who obsessively plumps cushions and polishes taps — if she took her address book into another room, she’d make sure she brought it back, put it there. Exactly. By the phone.’
He nodded. Slid the diary across, showed her the Friday entry.
She said thoughtfully, ‘C? Clerehaven? Or it could be Chatfield, couldn’t it? After all, that’s where she was found.’
‘Yes, but she was seen setting out in her car. She could have picked someone up from Clerehaven, then driven to Chatfield. So let’s start locally. Have we got an exact time she was seen leaving here?’
‘No. It’s the woman across the road, she’s pretty vague — except when it comes to poodles.’
‘Poodles?’
‘Yes, she’s got a house full of them. She can only see the end of the drive from her window, but she did see Jaynie Turner pull out of the drive, close the gates, get back in her car and drive off.’
‘Alone?’
‘The thing is, guv, it was dark by then — well-lit enough on this road, but not enough to see inside a car.’
‘Right. So, we start at Clerehaven station. You know what we want.’
‘Was a train due in five thirty on that date? If yes — from where? Did anyone see, speak to, Jaynie Turner? Recognise her car?’
‘Good. As for B.N., we keep him, her or it to ourselves for the present. Now, I’m going walkabout. I want to speak to Mrs Hope, the woman who reported her missing, see where that leads. Off you go then, improve the shining hour.’
It had already been established that Jaynie’s cleaning lady would not be any help, she was on a two-month convalescence after surgery. Jaynie had not engaged anyone else, preferring to manage herself temporarily. Her garden — minutely examined for anything that might shed light on her last hours — had remarkably managed to take on the same stunned gaudiness as the bungalow. Strolling round it, Hunter registered, with disbelief, one garden gnome mooning, another flashing. He glanced towards the bungalow. From a window Annette made a mad face at him.
On his way out, he spoke to the house-to-house enquiry team leader, one of his Chatfield contingent, leaving instructions for a thorough trawl round the neighbours to find if anyone could pinpoint the time Jaynie was seen driving away. Then, after receiving directions from the control room, he set out for High Town.
Mrs Hope lived on one of the many unmade, treelined roads, in a gabled 1920s house set in a spreading garden. She regarded his badge thoughtfully, ‘Do come in.’
A mature woman, statuesque, beautiful, a grandmother (judging by the photographs
scattered about her comfortable sitting-room), with a manner so charming and easy he experienced a momentary dislocation of the senses … he was a valued friend, at home here, dropping by on some personal, some social matter …
No. He was a plodding, hairy-arsed old copper going about his job.
She offered him coffee, which he refused; they sat down. She said, gravely and unflinchingly, This is the most dreadful thing, Mr Hunter, this violence in our community. One hears, one reads of such matters, but I can honestly say it’s an experience I’ve never had, never dreamt of — the murder of someone known to me. We all feel helpless, shocked, and inadequate. Because, you see, much as I want to help, I really don’t think there is anything I can say to you that will be of use.’
‘Right. Shall I decide about that, Mrs Hope?’
‘I’m sure you will.’
‘You reported her missing. What made you do that?’
She could have answered Because she was but she was too intelligent to take the question as meaningless and there was nothing defensive or self-justifying in her manner. She explained, with admirable clarity, the Friends of Clerehaven meeting. ‘ … that being the last time I personally saw her. She was very much a social person, you see, and because she was so attractive, very — visible — people missed her. And over the weekend she didn’t turn up at places where she was expected.’
‘Such as?’
‘Um, the Camerons, they’d invited her for lunchtime drinks on Saturday — a week ago — but she simply never appeared. Didn’t phone to apologise or explain — that wasn’t a bit like her. She was a reasonably regular churchgoer, and Saturday she was on the flower rota at St Botolph’s, and that wasn’t like her, to let everyone down, and when she didn’t come to Sunday morning service … And then, well, you should speak to my friend, Mrs Inez Bryant, because she saw her — briefly — the day after the Friends meeting and … ’ she faltered, ‘as far as we can make out, no one saw her after that.’
Death Out of Season Page 5